


Enough

by Shaye



Category: Grey's Anatomy
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Details from Private Practice, F/M, Follow-up to S03E17, So much angst but there's no avoiding it, Trigger Warning: Infant Death and Addiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-25
Updated: 2017-03-25
Packaged: 2018-10-10 12:10:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10437465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shaye/pseuds/Shaye
Summary: A baby is not an easy thing. Amelia knows that. Now she's finally able to tell him why.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I recently fell for Omelia so hard and so fast, and I just want them to talk--to get through this. Anyway, this is my way of dealing with the issues at hand :)

Two weeks. Three days. Three hours. That’s how long he has slept in their bed alone, waiting for her to come home. Waiting for her to talk to him, to yell at him, to do whatever she wants as long as it is with him. Their bed is cold and empty and so is his heart. Their home is far too clean--she was always messier than him--and he finds that he misses the clutter. God, he misses it. He misses  _ her _ . 

 

Two weeks. Three days. Five hours. He loses control. She couldn’t hide while right in front of him. She couldn't compartmentalize when he was barely breathing. He pulls her into a trauma room. But instead of her yelling, he yells. Instead of letting her scream, he screams. Instead of letting her speak, he speaks. And somehow he manages to make things even worse.

 

Two weeks. Three days. Eight hours. She has had enough. Enough of him. Enough of  _ them _ .

 

Two weeks. Four days. Six hours.  _ Why does it hurt so much? Why do they hurt each other so much? _ She speaks to him, finally speaks to him. She asks him why he wants a baby. She calls them a family. And then, as fast as they’re back, they’re gone.

 

Two weeks. Four days. Nine hours. Twenty-two minutes. She meets his eyes and he meets hers. And they stare. And they stare and they stare and they stare. Until the elevator dings and the doors open, and she leaves. She turns her head and leaves. And he lets her.

 

Two weeks. Four days. Nine hours. Twenty-three minutes. He runs. He runs out of the pit, up the stairs, and races down the hall. He squeezes himself through the barely-opened automatic doors, calling her name. She stops in surprise, but her eyes are so sad, so tired, so  _ done _ . “Please. Please, come home with me. I want to talk.”

 

* * *

 

He doesn’t know how he convinced her. He doesn’t know why she agreed. After all, it’s been two weeks, four days, nine hours, and forty-six minutes since she was last here. It’s been a hell of a day on top of that. But she’s here and he’s grateful. So, so grateful.

 

He unlocks the door, motioning for her to enter first and she does, only hesitating slightly in the entranceway. She’s still gripping her coat, holding it tight against her frame, so he doesn’t ask her if she wants to remove it. Instead he shuffles in behind her, careful not to touch her, careful not to put an end to the little piece of progress they’ve made, and asks her if she wants a drink. 

 

She looks up, the same haunted look in her eyes from earlier, and nods shakily. “A water would be nice.”

 

He gives her a curt nod and heads to the kitchen, grabbing two glasses before filling them halfway with ice. He pulls the bottle of sparkling lime water from the fridge and fills her glass to the brim, adding a little lemon juice as he knows she enjoys it. Then he adds some plain water to his glass and deftly carries both back into the living room, happy to find that she is at least seated now. Setting the glass on the coffee table before her, he gives her another small smile. He’s sure there is pain in his eyes and that the smile does not fully reach them, but he’s trying. He wants to try. 

 

She only looks away, grabbing her glass and taking a small sip. It’s almost imperceptible, but he can see her eyes light up ever so slightly as she tastes his concoction. Satisfied, he takes a seat at the window seat knowing they need to see each other’s eyes and that she probably wants her space. And they sit. They sit for a minute and that minute turns to two and she’s picking at her nails and he’s trying to steady his breathing and it’s stifling. For people who are usually so comfortable in the silence when they are together, this only twists the knife deeper. “Thank you,” Owen says, his voice gravelly. “For coming.” She nods, still engrossed in the distraction her hands provide. “I know I didn’t really give you a good reason to.” He turns his head in her direction, staring at her profile. “I haven’t really given you a good reason for much of anything lately,” he admits.

 

Finally looking up, he spots the tears in her eyes, ones so close to falling and yet he knows she will not allow them to. She sighs. “Are you about to give me another speech on ‘for better or for worse’?” It’s biting, callous, and he wants to scream. He wants them to go back. To erase these past few weeks--the hurtful words, the disappointment about the non-pregnancy, her leaving, them not being on the same page. But he can’t. They can’t go back.

 

“Amelia,” he rubs his palm over his eyes, “I’m sorry.” 

 

She scoffs. “For what, Owen? For thinking you have some right to my body? For screaming at me at work? For giving me an ultimatum?” She shakes her head. “You’re just sorry that we’re fighting.”

 

He sighs, loud and frustrated. “Amelia, I am sorry.” He pinches the bridge of his nose. “I never wanted to hurt you.”

 

She looks him in the eyes, her gaze hardening. “Yeah, well, that ship has sailed.”

 

“And I want to fix it. Please let me fix it.”

 

“I don’t know if you can.” The words are quiet, muffled, but he hears them loud and clear.

 

He slams his fist on the seat, groaning. “How can you do that?” He shakes his head--it seems to be all he can manage tonight. “You can’t run when someone hurts you. When someone makes a mistake. You can’t run.”

 

“I am not--”

 

“--You are! Amelia, you left. You left me. I didn’t even know where you went. You weren’t at work. You wouldn’t tell me where you were staying. Hell, I didn’t even know if you were still safe. If you were still sober.” She winces at the reminder, the actions she so desperately wanted to forget brought to the forefront of her mind.   
  


Instead she barrels on. “I didn’t drink. You can’t worry that I’m going to fall apart every time something bad happens.”

 

He lets a tear fall, his voice soft and full of sorrow. “But didn’t you?” He can see the anger build in her eyes and is, thus, quick to continue his statement. “You left. We didn’t talk about it. You just avoided me.”

 

“Because I can’t talk about it!” she screams, standing up in a flurry of motion.

 

He remains seated, another tear falling at her tone. However, he is breathing more easily now: anger is better than no feeling at all. “Why can’t you?”

  
“Because you don’t understand! You  _ won’t  _ understand.” She allows her arms to fall back to her side, her chest shuddering with a lifetime of built-up anguish and despair. 

 

“I will try to understand.” His voice is soothing, almost comforting. “I want to understand.”

 

She chokes back a sob. “And if I talk about it.” Her voice stops as she tries to catch her breath and gather her courage. She lets out a shaky breath, closing her eyes under the suffocating weight of vulnerability. “And if I talk about it, I have to feel it.” She looks up, tears glistening in her bloodshot eyes, “And I don’t want to feel it.” She brings her arms around her stomach, curling further into herself. “Owen,” she looks into his eyes, “I don’t want to feel it anymore.”

 

With her admission, he lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. He tilts his head, a look of support and love and empathy encompassed in his gaze, and she crumbles. She’s falling to the ground before he can even register that she’s moving, and she’s crying. She’s crying big, fat tears and her gut-wrenching sobs are punctuating the air. She’s holding herself tighter and tighter, tucking her head into her chest. It’s messy and it’s awful and it’s uncontrollable and all of that only serves to make her cry harder.

 

Within seconds, Owen snaps out of his surprise and is on the floor next to her, murmuring soothing words in her ears. They’re sweet nothings and he knows she probably doesn’t believe them, but he can’t think of anything else to do, anything else to say. He tentatively wraps an arm around her back, ready to remove it if she doesn’t want it there, but he’s grateful that she leans in further. So he hugs her tighter, keeping her close, his hand wiping away the tears cascading down her face as he cradles her cheek. He rubs her back and lets her ride out the pain. The pain that demands to be felt. The pain she’s been avoiding for far too long.

 

They sit like that for quite a while, neither knowing how much time passes. All they know is the heartbeat of the other and the warmth from their entwined bodies. And, somehow, that's enough. When Amelia’s tears finally slow and her labored breathing becomes quieter, Owen pulls back slightly. She tenses, grabbing his arms to hold him to her, but he only presses a tiny kiss to the top of her head. “I’m not going anywhere.” He moves his hands to cup her red-stained cheeks, brushing his thumbs over her cheekbones. “I just want to see your eyes.” His lips turn upward as he leans forward to press a kiss to her forehead. “I’m sorry everything hurts so much.” He pulls back, staring into her eyes once more. “I wish I could take it all away.” He sighs. “God, how did I screw this up so badly? I just, I thought we were on the same page.”

 

She sniffles and attempts a tiny smile. It’s not much, but she’s trying her best. “You weren’t the only one who screwed up.” She looks down, avoiding his gaze. “I talked about kids.  _ We  _ talked about kids.”

 

“What changed?”

  
“It was all hypothetical.” She shrugs.

 

“And when it wasn’t a hypothetical anymore?” he prompts.

 

“I thought I was happy.” She shrugs, scoffing at her own false hope. “And then, when I was waiting for the test to finish, I was just scared. So scared. I couldn’t breathe.” She turns her gaze upward, toward his eyes. “I’m so scared, Owen.”

 

He nods. “I know.” He lets out a breath of air. “And I don’t know if I can ever really understand, but I want to try.” He shrugs, his gaze clear and sure. “You’re right. You’re not the messed up one. I never meant for you to think that I thought that. I  _ don’t  _ think that. I’m the messed up one.”

 

“We’re both pretty messed up.” She gives him a wry grin.

 

“Yeah. I guess we are.” 

 

She reaches up to place her hands on top of his. “I’m worried that you think a baby will fix that,” she whispers.

 

“What?” 

 

“That a baby will make us better. That we won’t be screw ups anymore. We won’t be quite so messed up.” She removes her hands from his only to bring them down to her lap to fiddle with. “You have this dream. A beautiful, amazing dream. But life doesn’t always go the way we want it to.” She chuckles, a bitter sound tainting it. “In my experience, babies only make the mess ups worse. They only break you more.”

 

He continues to rub his thumbs over her cheekbones, his eyes silently pleading with her to continue. To help him understand. 

 

She gazes at her hands--anything to get away from his eyes. “My baby was born without a brain. No brain.” She feels Owen shift and can practically feel his eyes burning holes in her skull, begging her to look up. “I’m a damn neurosurgeon--a world class one at that--and my baby had no brain.” She finally takes a chance and lets her eyes shift upward, her smile watery. “I didn’t find out I was pregnant until I was about twenty weeks along. I know it seems stupid not to realize, but that was the time I was in rehab for drugs. The man,” she pauses, taking another breath, “the man I loved, the one who died, was my baby’s father. And after Ryan died, I had to get clean. I figured he’d have been so pissed at me if I died too.” She looks to see if Owen is fading yet, if this is too much for him, for them, to discuss, but all his eyes radiate is love. So she continues. “My body was all screwed up. I was in rehab. I was having awful withdrawal symptoms. I didn’t know I was pregnant.” She sniffles. “And when I found out, I was so afraid to tell anyone. I was already a major screw up.”

  
“You were not--”

 

She gives him a tight smile. “But I was.” She looks down again. “I didn’t want to see what horrible things I had done to my baby. I didn’t want it to be real.” She pulls his hands from her face and squeezes them in her own. “When Addie finally got me to do an ultrasound, she told me my baby,” she takes a breath, “my baby was anencephalic. I was too far into the pregnancy to terminate. The only real option was to deliver. For a while I just ignored it. I fired Addie as my O.B. and I refused to talk to anyone in the office. I didn’t take any prenatal vitamins. I was just...numb.” Amelia shakes her head of the memories. “And then I had this patient, this little girl, who was stabbed. After I had declared her brain dead, her parents wanted to donate her organs. And then I decided that that’s what my baby would do.” She tilts her head, shrugging as her tears threatened to reemerge. “I needed something good to come of it.” Owen nods, holding onto her tighter. “I was in labor for twenty-three hours. No drugs. I refused to let Addie in the room and I yelled at most of the people who did come by.”

 

“Derek?” he asks quietly.

 

“I didn’t tell my family. No one knew.”

 

“Amelia--”

 

“I didn’t want anyone to know. And I was sick of people telling me they were sorry. I was sick of the pity and the guilt. I just wanted to get through it.” She exhales shakily. “Eventually Addie came in anyway and made me sit with her. She held my hand.”

 

“I’m thankful you had someone there.”

 

Amelia nods. “She was right. I wanted her there. Even though I was jealous that she got to be a mom with a healthy baby when I didn’t. I needed her there.” Amelia gives her husband another small, watery smile. “I got to hold him.” She chokes on a sob, trying so desperately to push it back down. “I got to hold him and he was the most beautiful baby I had ever seen.”

 

Owen nods, a tender smile washing across his face. “I’m sure he was.”

 

“I got to hold him until he started squeaking.” She shakes her head. “Anencephalic babies don’t cry, they squeak.” At his nod, she continues. “He was going into respiratory distress and I needed to let him go.” He wipes away the tear that falls as she says the words. “And I miss him.”

 

“I can only imagine,” Owen, says, pulling her closer to rest her head against his chest. “It’s impossible to imagine.”

 

“Yeah, it is.” She sighs. “I loved him so much. Still do. So it was wonderful.” She takes another breath, curling her fingers into the fabric of his shirt. “But also painful. Impossibly painful.” She sniffles, inhaling the comforting scent of his cologne, before pulling back to look directly into his bright blue eyes. “That’s why I ran. That’s why I didn’t owe you an explanation for what I wanted to do with my body.” She allows herself to smile. “But you were also right. You deserved one.”

 

Owen tilts his head, the tender look in his eyes melting her even more. “Thank you. For telling me. I shouldn’t have pushed you and given you an ultimatum. That wasn’t fair of me.”

 

She concedes, nodding slightly. “Still. It makes a lot more sense once you know the whole story. It probably just looked like I was running for no reason.”

 

“But I have to trust that you won’t.” He pushes a strand of hair behind her ear.

 

“I used to run for no reason.”

 

“Used to. You keep fighting that impulse. Have been since you stood outside my trailer and gave me a speech about how loving someone is harder than leaving.” He smiles at the fond memory, happy to see her eyes light up too. “I trust you. I trust you not to run forever.”

 

“I’m sorry it took me so long to tell you.” He nods before leaning in to mold their lips together in a simple, unhurried kiss. 

 

“I love you, Amelia,” he says, his forehead leaning against hers.

 

“I love you, too.” She moves closer, connecting their lips once more, savoring the connection she has missed for far too long. Pulling back, she whispers, “Someday.”

 

“Hmm?” he mumbles.

 

“Someday I think I’ll be ready.” She bites her lip. “I want to be ready. And we can have the five kids,” she chuckles.

 

He smirks. “Four if they terrorize us.”

 

She smiles. “True.” She leans her forehead back against his. “I think I want to be a mom. I’m just not ready yet.”

 

“And that’s okay.” He pulls away, only to press feather-light kisses to her eyes, nose, and cheeks. “If you’re ready in six months from now or a year from now or even if you’re never ready, we’ll be okay.” He wraps his arms around her waist and pulls her close, content to feel her nose bury itself in his neck. “I don’t know what our life will be like. I can’t tell you that we’ll have a baby or that we won’t. I can’t tell you that I won’t say the wrong thing or that I won’t do something you’ll hate, or--or anything really. But I can tell you this. I know that I won’t have the life I want if you’re not in it.”

 

He feels her smile against his pulse point. “I won’t either.”

 

“So we’re okay?” He rubs her back, his head cushioned on top of hers.

 

“We’re okay.”

 

And, for them, that’s more than enough.

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! This is my first time writing for Omelia, so I'd love your thoughts!


End file.
